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ITCM 19 - Jareif
Inside the Competitor's Mind 19 - Jareif MizVirago and I were late, and we were both stressed out because both of us believe in being punctual. But we had got lost and had to drive around a bit before we found the church. We were meeting jareif, we were going to interview him after the end of the musical production that was being held at the church. jareif was going to be mixing the live audio for this musical production. We were always willing to attend a musical production, so this seemed like a match made in heaven. A warm smiling woman was waiting for us at the door when we finally arrived. “Hi, I’m jareif’s wife,” she said softly. “Come on, I saved some seats for you. It’s about to start.” We followed her as quietly as we could, aware of the stares from the audience as we were guided to some pretty good seats. A little boy was talking animatedly to the person next to him. He stopped talking when we slid into the pew and and jareif’s wife introduced their four year old son to us. “That must be jareif at the soundboard,” I spoke quietly to his wife, who smiled and nodded. “Our five month old is with my mother, and that’s our 2 year old sitting next to him,” she replied with a wry grimace. “He wanted to do what daddy does this evening.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to have to keep one eye on him all night.” We laughed softly, but before we could say anything, the overture began, and everyone settled down to watch the show. I was enjoying the show, but it was the little show at the soundboard that eventually caught my attention. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing and I could feel MizVirago shaking with silent laughter. jareif’s son, who had been sitting quietly next to him when the show first began, had started to become fidgety. First he reached for buttons, and jareif had to bat his hand away. That happened several times. Then the little boy decided he’d had enough of sitting, so he started to hang on jareif’s arm, just as jareif was reaching for a switch. jareif grabbed him with his other hand and held him for a moment until he’d thrown the switch he needed. Thwarted of that, the boy climbed onto his father’s back and looped his arms around jareif’s neck. I saw jareif’s eyes widen and a hand come up and peel his son’s arms from around his neck. I heard a choking sound next to me, and I wasn’t far from choking on my laughter myself. Then the boy slid down his father’s back down to the floor and started to crawl around under the seat. “That’s it!” I heard a muttered grumble and jareif’s wife went up and snatched her young son away from his father and hauled him, wriggling, to the pew where we were. There were more than a few grins in the audience along the way. Eyes brimming with laughter, MizVirago reached her arms out to the little boy. He grinned and went into them. She began to rock him and the two boys talked to her in whispers throughout the rest of the show. I saw jareif’s wife sigh in relief and turn her attention to the show. When the show was over, jareif came over to us and slid into the pew with a sigh of relief. By that time, both his sons had fallen asleep, the 2 year old in MizVirago’s arms, the 4 year old leaning against her. jareif shook his head, laughing, “What a brat.” “Your son,” his wife retorted, also laughing. “Oh, now,” MizVirago protested fondly, “he’s a darling little boy. They’re both darling.” I chuckled at the granny lust but decided we need to get the interview started so that jareif could take his family home. “I'm 30 and have been married to this beautiful woman for eight years,” he smiled at his wife. “We have three young boys that clearly keep our life very entertaining.” We all laughed at that. “ I work for an engineering company, focusing on project controls, which is an auxiliary role to project management. I live in the States, but have worked on overseas assignments in the past.” “I have a limited gaming history. My mom limited my time with electronic games when I was growing up because she didn't want me to waste too many of my hours isolated in front of a screen. The times I did play games growing up, they were on the PC and were typically of the simulator variety, like flight simulators or EA's World Cup soccer game.” He paused and grinned, and I could see where his son got his mischief from, “ Fast forward to now, and it turns out my mom was even wiser than I gave her credit for,” he laughed. “ When I play a game I get very absorbed. I do own a PS3 now and occasionally play some games there, but honestly, the original Blood Brothers is the first game that I devoted large amounts of time to. Now I have moved on from that and focus pretty much exclusively on Blood Brothers 2.” When I asked him about his IGN, he gave me a rueful grin, “As is often the case with the natural-born engineer types, I am fairly literal and not overly imaginative. My ign and forum user names are the same, and they are simply portions of my real name stitched together.” “I am not currently in a guild,” he continued. “There are a number of varied reasons for this. I suppose I like being independent when I start a new game and like to begin by seeing how much I can accomplish on my own. Also, I know my appetite for getting sucked into games, so I feel that by avoiding the commitment a guild brings it makes it at least somewhat easier for me to walk away when necessary. Also, somewhat humorously, most guilds currently use Line chat groups and I don't like the Line app so typically have it uninstalled.” He laughed heartily at that, amused at himself. “Forum debates nearly always annoy me. I typically shy away from conflict, so I usually don't participate in threads that are almost exclusively bickering, unless I feel that I have some truth that could be interjected to help both parties. There was also formerly WAY too much general complaining in the forum, but it seems the mods have cleaned that up a bit. I find people tend to overestimate the constructiveness of their criticism and hope that whining, threatening, mocking, or outbursts of anger will somehow suffice as a change agent.” He shrugged. “I think this game caters to both F2P and P2P fairly well. I always describe myself as F2P. On the original Blood Brothers I literally never spent a dime. I can't quite call myself F2P on this game though, because it is the first game that sucked me in to the point of spending money on sigils for a pact, the Moloch pact, for example. I sold my resources from the "other" Blood Brothers to partially fund my purchases here,” he chuckled. “I expect the opinions of the paying players to carry to most weight because they are the ones that fund this game I play, so I give them leeway when offering suggestions to DeNA. On a philosophical note, I pat myself on the back for my budgetary restraint when it comes to typically not spending on games. I do have five mouths to feed after all. However, I'm gradually realizing that time is much more valuable than money, and the F2P model requires lots and lots of time. I haven't yet acted on this paradigm shift, but depending on how valuable the game is to me, it might result in less investment in the game, or some money spent to reduce time invested.” He paused to think about the Forum mod question, “Well, I respect the forum mods and let them do their job. I am an administrator of both the original Blood Brothers wiki and the BB2 wiki, so I have to do my own fair share of moderating. To moderate effectively, you have to ensure rules are posted, stick to them unwaveringly, but be open to adjusting them if things need to change, and have a thick skin. There will always be people who get angry at moderation, but the mods have to let the criticism roll off their backs. I've often had to deal with the "I have a right to free speech" outcry following the editing or removal of a post, but the response is simple. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Also, this isn't the US government, it's a privately run forum. Your rights extend as far as the posted rules say they do, and if you are unwilling to comply, your complaints are meaningless.” He stopped for a moment, then apologized, “ Sorry for getting a bit riled here, I suppose some of these argumentative threads do get to me after all.” “In any case, my approach to all the event types can basically be summed up as: I play as my day allows, mostly on naturally regenerated energy. I don't have enough hours in my typical day to chase top rewards, so I conserve my sigils usually. I think the dailies are my favorite because they allow flexibility in ranking. I might get nothing on a day I'm busy, but on a day I have more time I could rank higher. I am however spending some sigils to get a 5* Gath this time around though, because, as the "damage formula guy" I really like ATK buffs, and I think he'll be fun to use.” The boy in MizVirago’s arms stirred and began to fuss. “We’ll let you go,” I said, smiling at jareif and his wife. “I know you need to get the boys to bed. Thank you so much for the entertainment tonight.” “You mean my son, and not the musical production right?” jareif laughed wryly as he tenderly cradled his younger son. I heard a soft, wistful sigh from MizVirago. “They’re charming little boys,” she said to them. “I adored them.” Then we said our goodbyes and left. Category:Mizy Category:ITCM